Working Backwards: July to May

Two days before leaving Taiwan, the show that included my and my workshop participants' works, Collaboration: Anticipating the Art of the Future, opened at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts.

I brought this piece entitled Mechanical Universe: Nocturne from Boston to finish while a resident at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts. I took the idea of a nocturne and used a limited palette of silvers and grey to suggest Whistler's famous twilight images and his equal interest in the abstract qualities of limited tones.These formal effects have been channeled via Mondrian to create an abstracted choreography between the moving paintings, in order to echo the eerie sense of longing in the sounds contributed by the Belgian sound artist Yannick Franck. (photos: Chang-Chih Chen)

The museum also made a nice blog of the workshop at http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3521028847868531777&postID=5396888155115639043

Shanghai

Zendai Museum of Modern Art/Jinshan Beach, China as part of the Museum’s
Intrude 366: Art & Life www.intrude366.com/

For my piece at Intrude 366, the museum staff surprised me by hand-printing the 800 Kongming lanterns (with the Intrude logo and code numbers) to be launched into the sky in a particular sequence to spell out the words Here Comes the Sun in ASCII programming code. The launch of each set of lanterns had an initial sound (by Rudi Punzo) at the moment of take off, intermingling with the sound of the next letter (symbolized by the number of lanterns) launched.

ASCII is the programming code use by most computers to assign a number to each keyboard function. This can be thought of as a modern-day equivalent to the pervious means of submitting data electronically - Morse code or the ancient Chinese practice of writing messages to send to the one’s ancestors. The inspiration for the piece came from the Chinese military strategist Zhuge Liang, or Kongming (Three Kingdom Period) and his “public performances”

Zhuge Liang, arguably, created some of China’s first public art ‘performances’ as a tool to thwart off an enemy: Threatened with an invasion, Zhuge Liang opened his fortress gates and calmly sat playing music, rendering his fortress vulnerable. When the enemy arrived, they could not believe their eyes or ears and, thus, thought that this must be a trick and retreated. Still, others say it was because the music was so beautiful that the enemy was so moved that they could not attack.. Later, again, Zhuge Liang was threatened with war, so he sent a spy to his enemies’ camp to substitute the maps of his land with false maps, locating his fortress where it was not. Where the maps showed this false fortress, he sent up flying Kongming lanterns (which were often used for signaling), tricking the enemy to believe that that location was indeed his fortress, allowing Zhuge Liang’s army to take his enemy from behind.
Here Comes the Sun – whose title references the Beatles’ song “Here comes the Sun” - re-inacted these 2 famous public art works. In addition, out of respect for the recent losses from the earthquake, I adapted the piece to send a Chinese blessing, roughly translated as “Here Comes the Sun.”

The Workshop

Everyone working and helping for the show at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, including
Ping-Yu's mother.

My Studio and Private Balcony

One of the best parts of being in Taiwan: the view from my studio and my private balcony off the studio. . .

The Lectures

Also while in Taiwan, I had the privilege to speak at a number of museums, cultural institutions and universities, allowing me the opportunity to see much of the Taiwan's beautiful country.

The Lectures: Part 2 (imitating the slides)

New Friends

And of course the best part was that I met so many wonderful people everywhere I went. I am very grateful to the Fulbright Senior Specialist Program and the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts for making all this possible.